Former President Mahama during one of his food sharing charades
It is emerging that while the opposition National Democratic Congress(NDC) seeks to castigate President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and the governing New Patriotic Party(NPP) for, supposedly, taking advantage of the COVID-19 outbreak to inflict what it describe as “unwholesome politics” on the people of Ghana, former President John Dramani Mahama stealthily moved round selected points in the Greater Accra Region, contriving political gimmicks through food donations, during the partial lockdown of some parts of the country.
Intelligence information captured on video, sighted by the Daily Statesman, and other pieces of available evidence indicate that the Mahama acts of charity, regarding food donations particularly, were founded more on an NDC con strategy, other than a needs assessment-based relief gesture.
The pieces of evidence in the possession of the Daily Statesman cover every area where the rehearsed relief gestures were inflicted on the populace through subtle propaganda.
Some residents of the affected areas believe the whole drama was a propaganda ploy to portray the NDC 2020 flagbearer as a caring person, despite vivid evidence to the contrary while he presided over governance for two terms as president of the land.
Indeed, the relief gesture was acted out in pre-selected areas, at the time Mr Mahama was asking Ghanaians to demand from government rent rebates and social security benefits in addition to the water and electricity reliefs the government had offered millions of citizens.
Orchestrated
Graphic shots reveal that the gimmick was contrived at Kuluedor, near Sege, a suburb of Ada. Kuluedor is a farming and salt mining community which was not affected by any lockdown, and therefore was not in dire need of relief packages in the form of food.
The Daily Statesman can reveal that in this community, only eight households, which are manifestly made up of NDC sympathisers, were picked to receive the donations, while the former president displayed grace and humour before the cameras.
Mr John Mahama acted that same drama at Borteyman in Accra, off the Tema Motorway stretch and near Adjiringanor, where only three households actually benefitted from the hyped largess.
Gripe
The former president and the opposition National Democratic Congress have been in the news lately, vehemently rubbishing the government’s relief efforts during the lockdown. They have accused the government of choosing and picking beneficiaries of its food distribution programme, citing even in indigenous communities where it is challenging telling an NPP household from those of the NDC.
They also griped at the President for going the extra mile to initiate further social programmes to reduce the economic burdens on citizens inflicted by the outbreak of COVID-19.
While more moderate NDC stalwarts admitted that the President had fared excellently in generally handling the disaster, John Mahama’s band of youthful communicators went into tantrums over Akufo-Addo’s lawful mandate to initiate programmes to mollify the distressing situations average Ghanaians were confronted with.
The opposition NDC has vehemently described such initiatives as populist, ignoring its own contrived gimmicks in which only a handful of party people were beneficiaries.
Source: Daily Statesman
